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1 Timothy

1 Timothychapter 4

16 verses · BSB1 Timothy book hub →

Speaks with:Titus 2×5Romans 14×32 Timothy 2×31 Timothy 1×31 Timothy 6×22 Timothy 3×1

Summary

Chapter summary

The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats. Every creature of God is good. Exercise thyself rather unto godliness. Godliness is profitable unto all things. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Wesley reads the chapter as the charge to ministerial diligence.

Context

Epistle · Paul — 1 Timothy overview

  • A. 1–5 In Later Times Some Will Depart From the Faith
  • B. 6–11 Train Yourself for Godliness
  • C. 12–16 Let No One Look Down on Your Youth

The outline

  1. A.In Later Times Some Will Depart From the Faithvv. 1 to 5

    Read vv. 1 to 5 →

  2. B.Train Yourself for Godlinessvv. 6 to 11

    Read vv. 6 to 11 →

  3. C.Let No One Look Down on Your Youthvv. 12 to 16

    Read vv. 12 to 16 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The faithful sayings of the Pastorals

Pattern

Five times the Pastoral letters mark a church maxim with the formula this is a faithful saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, the desire of the bishop's office, godliness profitable unto all things, if we be dead with him, and the charge to maintain good works.

The formula shows the young churches already carried fixed, quotable teaching while the apostles still wrote. Paul stamps each saying reliable, and the five together run from salvation to office to godliness to endurance to good works.

  1. 1 Timothy 1:15

    Christ Jesus came to save sinners

    The first saying carries the gospel itself, and Paul signs it: of whom I am chief.

  2. 1 Timothy 3:1

    He desireth a good work

    The KJV reads this is a true saying here; the Greek carries the same formula as the other four.

  3. 1 Timothy 4:8-9 you are here

    Godliness profitable unto all things

    The saying holds promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

  4. 2 Timothy 2:11

    If we be dead with him

    The saying runs on: we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

  5. Titus 3:8

    Careful to maintain good works

    The last saying is to be affirmed constantly: these things are good and profitable unto men.

The world behind this chapter

1 Timothy 4
When
After Paul's first Roman imprisonment · c. AD 62–64
Where
A warning against teachers in Ephesus forbidding marriage and certain foods
Who first heard it
Believers being told that holiness meant giving up the body

The history

The idea that matter is beneath the spirit was in the air across the Greek world. Groups of the period practiced strict diets, avoided meat, and treated celibacy as the higher road, and the teaching drifting into the Ephesian church seems to have mixed that instinct with Jewish food rules.

The chapter answers it from creation: food is God's, made to be received with thanks. Jewish households already said a blessing over bread and wine, so 'set apart by the word of God and prayer' described something the hearers did at every meal.

Bodily training was a real institution. Every Greek city of size had a gymnasium where young men exercised, and the discipline of an athlete was the standard picture of hard, unglamorous effort. Paul grants that it profits a little — and then reaches past it.

The instruction to devote himself to the public reading, to exhortation, and to teaching describes the actual shape of a meeting. Scrolls were expensive and rare, so a congregation heard Scripture read aloud by one man and explained on the spot, exactly as a synagogue did.

What it meant to them

For hearers being shamed as second-class Christians because they married and ate meat, the chapter says the shaming itself is the error, and names its source.

For Timothy, held back by his youth, the answer is not a title but a life the church can watch — his speech, his conduct, his teaching, in front of everyone.

Sources cited

  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
  • Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 1 Timothy 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and Patrick Fairbairn, The Pastoral Epistles.

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